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Innovation and the contributions from venture capital

1.
Innovation and the contributions from venture capital
Paper for DRUID Conference
“Knowledge, innovation and competitiveness: Dynamics of firms, networks,
regions and institutions”
Copenhagen, Denmark, June. 18.-20th 2006
Keywords: innovation, venture capital, value added,
JEL Codes: G24, G11, M13
Word count: 10084
Abstract:
This paper explores the role of venture capital in the development of firms generally and in innovation
specifically. In particular, it focuses on the value added of venture capital firms (VCFs) in their portfo-
lio firms in terms of the non-pecuniary contributions. The research question is what is it exactly that
venture capital firms add to a company except pure capital, how much are they involved, and most
important - what determines this involvement – are VCFs e.g. more involved in highly innovative
firms? The paper critically reviews earlier, traditional literature and suggests an alternative theoretical
approach. Empirical results for Denmark suggest that VCFs primarily act as a link to other financing
sources and generally as a networker. The direct contribution to innovation is modest. There was not
only a huge variation in how much venture capitalists were involved in their portfolio firms, the firms
also differed substantially in their assessment of the value of the contribution from the venture capital-
ists. Finally, VCFs tend to be more involved in firms who are relatively large, innovative, financially
fragile, and with large growth rates. The variance found in what and how much VCFs do indicate that
entrepreneurs should be aware of these differences when choosing which VCF to approach.

2.
1. INTRODUCTION
Many innovation studies have focused upon the initial phases of the innovation process,
sources for innovation, the generation of ideas. Doing something new usually implies some
degree of uncertainty. Innovation is by definition characterized by novelty and uncertainty. It
thus should not be surprising that financiers are reluctant to join innovation projects. On the
other hand, people do not always dislike taking risks, as illustrated by the following excerpt,
in which the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) compares
innovation financing with expenses on gambling.
‘In many countries about 5% of the GNP is spent on traditional gambling – casinos,
lotteries, football pools, horse-racing and – one must ask why is so little spent on in-
novation financing?’ (OECD 1982, p.119)
In innovation financing, as in gambling, the chances of financing a successful, radical innova-
tion are relatively small, but the potential gains are large. A consequence of uncertainty is that
innovators, be they firms or financiers, must carefully consider the technical practicability and
market prospects before putting the innovation process into effect.
But to carry the process of innovation through a number of conditions are vital. Among these
the economic development process in society is dependent upon financing innovation and
entrepreneurship as mentioned by Schumpeter (1911, 1939), but also more specifically on the
ex ante investment screening and the ex post monitoring and nursing of the investee firms.
Both these processes require information and competences.
Venture capital is often viewed as a particular valuable source of financing of the innovative
and entrepreneurial firm, because it combines capital and competencies. It is widely believed
that venture capital involves not just passive finance. In fact, venture capital is often defined
by a heavy involvement of venture capital firms (VCFs) in their portfolio firms. This in-
volvement is a way to assist the development of the portfolio firm, something often particu-
larly needed in relation to new, small firms. Such firms are often in need of complementing
internal competencies, and venture capital firms may be one such external supplier of addi-
tional competencies as well as a gateway to networks.
Various aspects of this have been taken up in the venture capital research (an overview is in
Mason & Harrison, 1999 and in Wright and Robbie, 1998). On the involvement of VCFs the
issues in the academic discussions may be grouped into four; the degree of involvement, the
content of the involvement, the impact of the involvement, and the factors that spur involve-
ment. A number of studies have discussed what VCFs do, and how much they are involved
(Reid, (1999), Elango et al. (1995), Ehrlich et al. (1994), MacMillan et al. (1988), Sapienza et
al. (1996)). There is, however, little research on what is it on the firm side (other than mere
strategy with the VCF) that make VCFs more or less involved. Moreover, the majority of
studies are U.S. or U.K. based, both of these venture capital markets are highly developed.1
1
It may be argued that the basics and practise of the value-adding process by venture capital firms are the same
regardless the differences in institutional context such as US and European markets (deClercq and Fried, 2005,
Sapienza et.al., 1996). However specific cross-country evidence is sparse.
1

3.
The present paper focuses on three important such aspects of venture capital involvement in a
European country where the venture capital market is less developed and less matured. It dis-
cusses the theoretical basis for the value adding process and it reports empirical results on an
investigation of the involvement of Danish venture capital firms in their investee companies2.
More precisely, it is discussed what is it exactly that venture capital firms add to a company
except pure capital, how much are they involved, and most important - what determines this
involvement.3 Several earlier studies have displayed the quantitative development of emergent
venture capital markets. This study focuses explicitly on qualitative aspects.
Whereas the pioneering study on this issue by Gorman and Sahlman (1989), and several sub-
sequent studies, answered the research question “What do Venture capitalists do?” by relying
on the statements by the venture capital firms, the empirical method in the present paper takes
another approach. The empirical research is based on interviews of portfolio firms rather than
their venture capital financier. The data for the analyses covers all existing venture-backed
firms in Denmark.
The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 contains a short overview of existing empirical
work focusing on the value added of venture capital. This review is helpful in developing the
hypotheses for our own research. A discussion of the theoretical basis of the relationship be-
tween the parties is provided in section 3. Section 4 describes the data set including construc-
tion of data/sample and methodological choices. Section 5 deals with qualitative effects of
venture capital as seen by the Danish portfolio firms. Furthermore it incorporates findings
from similar surveys in Sweden, Norway and the UK. Finally, section 6 contains concluding
remarks on the implications of the results and the limitations of the analyses.
2: RESEARCH ON VALUE-ADDED BY VENTURE CAPITALISTS
2.1. What do VCFs do?
One of the most influential pieces of empirical work on the content of venture capitalists in-
volvement is the article by Gorman and Sahlman (1989) with the title above. In their empiri-
cal analysis, questionnaires mailed to 100 VCFs rendered 49 responses. These showed that the
most frequent assistance to portfolio firms was to raise additional funds. Strategic analysis
and management recruiting were also seen as important. Reid (1999) found that supply of
financial capital and related, financial expertise were the most important contributions from
VCFs, whereas “knowledge of product or service” and “knowledge of markets” were evalu-
ated as unimportant. Along these lines Elango et al. (1995) found similar results from a survey
of 149 venture capitalists. They did not find that highly involved VCFs assist with making
introductions to costumers, suppliers and service providers. In stead, these VCFs were much
involved in seeking additional financing, recruiting management and operational planning.
MacMillan et al. (1989) and Ehrlich et al. (1994) likewise found that financial aspects of the
2
Differences between what venture capital firms do in different countries is an interesting issue in itself, al-
though only briefly discussed in this paper.
3
In this paper we thus do not analyse the possible relationship between venture capitalists involvement and firm
performance. MacMillan et al. (1989) and Barney et al.(1996) investigate this issue explicitly. The former study
found no relationship between neither the type nor the level of involvement on the one hand, and performance on
the other. Barney et al. (1996) conclude their review of other studies with the claim that “Researchers generally
conclude that the impact of VC advice on venture performance is probably relatively small” (p. 259). They like-
wise find that firm performance is not related to the evaluation of VCF assistance. DeClercq and Fried (2005) do
find clear positive impact of venture capital firms value added on portfolio performance. They do, though, point
to that other factors affect performance.
2

4.
venture was the most important aspect of the interaction, and that serving as a sounding board
to the entrepreneur was important as well. Generally, the studies have not identified a role for
VCFs to assist in technology development (e.g. Fredriksen et al., 1997 and Ehrlich et al.,
1994).
Sapienza et al. (1996) found consistent results across four countries with respect to what is the
value-added contribution by VCFs. In their study strategic roles encompassing sounding
board and financier were assessed as most important by the VCFs themselves. Second most
important were interpersonal roles as mentor and confidant, whereas networking roles were
third.
2.2. The level of involvement
Discussing the level of involvement unavoidable introduce some degree of subjectivism and
imprecise measurements. Various studies defined and measured the level of involvement dif-
ferently. Elango et al. (1995) grouped their VCFs ”inactive”, ”active advice-givers” and
”hands-on”. MacMillan et al. (1989) denoted their VCFs in ”laissez faire”, ”moderate” and
”close tracker”. Both groupings are similar to that of Perry (1988), who use “investors”, “ad-
visors” and “partners”. Other studies, such as Sapienza et al. (1996), use the exact annual
hours or days devoted by the VCF to work with the venture. Using this measure that study
found significant differences in the level of involvement across countries. U.S. and U.K VCFs
spend on average more (twice the amount) time on each venture compared to their French and
Dutch counterparts.
By far most of the previous empirical studies use the assessment of the VCFs to determine the
level of involvement. The present study takes its point of departure in statements from the
managers of firms4. It uses a five-point Likert scale to differentiate active VCFs from passive
ones. It thus resembles that of Ehrlich et al. (1994).
2.3. Determinants of high involvement
Gorman & Sahlman (1989) point out that requirements to VCF involvement are higher in
early stage investments. Thus, the size or age of the portfolio firm may be one determinant of
the level of involvement. In his ph.d. dissertation Sapienza (1989) add to this point by point-
ing to four such determinants that may indicate that higher involvement is necessary:
a) the start-up experience of the entrepreneur
b) the level of innovation in the firm
c) low levels of goal congruence
d) geographical distance
Landström (1992) provides a model of the relationship between the parties that divide the
variables influencing the involvement into four groups. The first of these groups is character-
istics of the portfolio company such as the innovation level of the firm and the development
stage of the venture, as pointed to above. He also include what he denotes dyadic characteris-
tics, which is the geographical distance, ownership share and the like. A third group of char-
acteristics are linked to the entrepreneur, such as prior experiences in the industry, manage-
ment, former interaction with VCFs. Finally, environmental characteristics are those that
4
Fredriksen et al. (1997) find in a pair-wise study that the two parties generally had the same perception of the
influence of the interaction.
3

5.
make up the external framework for the relationship, such as competition and other market
conditions.
Complementary the attitudes of the portfolio firm may heavily influence the interaction. Bar-
ney et al. (1996) finds that firms are not receptive to advise from VCFs when they are them-
selves experienced in the industry. Vice versa they welcome advise when they are unexperi-
enced. An important implication from the Barney et al. study is that an appropriate level of
involvement from the VCF is not only dependent upon the characteristics pointed to above. It
is also partially contingent upon whether the portfolio firm is open to learning. Generally, the
knowledge exchange is dependent upon not only the structural setting of the investment con-
tract, but also whether the entrepreneur have positive expectations, motivation and abilities
(Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998).
3: ESTABLISHED AND ALTERNATIVE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS ON THE VENTURE CAPI-
TALIST – INVESTEE LINK
The literature discussed above has shown us some of the existing knowledge and thinking
about our three research questions. It may be useful to extend this discussion to include also a
few more general theoretical considerations. This take the form of discussing two rather dif-
ferent perspectives on the VCF-firm relationship, the one stemming from more traditional
financial theory, and the other an attempt to apply some of the theoretical developments from
other research areas that are relevant as a new perspective on this relationship.
Generally, barriers to financing of especially small and/or innovative firms are said to be rooted
in the lack of information, trust, and competencies between the parties. Venture capital is char-
acterized by illiquid equity investments involving high degrees of information asymmetries. This
requires relative intense monitoring, which in the literature (Amit et. al, 1998, Fredriksen, 1997)
has been pointed to as one explanation why venture capital firms exist: due to the specialized
abilities to screen potential deals and to cope with asymmetric information, venture capital
firms use this competence to invest in firms with a high risk/high return profile and where
returns are highly uncertain. It is often claimed in the literature that such barriers may be miti-
gated by the hands-on character of venture capital financing, involving close interaction between
the firm and the venture capital firm, which facilitates the buildup of trust and mutual under-
standing between the parties (de Clercq and Sapienza, 2001, Shepherd and Zacharakis, 2001).
The information and economics literature generally rest on the basic assumption that asymmetric
information between a lender and a borrower may have deterrent effects on loan markets because
of moral hazards and adverse selection effects. Theoretically the relationship between
entrepreneurship and the financing of the process has been described by applying models of
asymmetric information leading into principal-agent problems (Myers and Majluf, 1984,
Leland and Pyle, 1977, Stiglitz and Weiss, 1981, and numerous later models). Interestingly,
the asymmetry is almost always described as an information gap on the part of the financier:
the bank – or whatever financier – does not have as much information as the entrepreneur
about the true nature of the entrepreneurial firm and the potential moral hazard of the
entrepreneur. Therefore, the financier must put up incentive schemes to ensure alignment
between interests of the financier and the entrepreneur. Another, related, theory is the principal-
agent theory, in which it is discussed how can a principal (for example, a provider of funds for a
venture capital firm) set up a compensation system to motivate an agent (for example, the
management of a venture capital firm) to act in the principals’ interests. It is presupposed that
there are potential conflicts of interests and that the principal cannot directly observe the
4

6.
actions of the agent. Again, principal-agent line of thinking may be reversed: by accepting
equity investor, thus often departing with influence, the entrepreneur could expect the
financier to contribute with consultancy and other contributions.
These theories seem at first sight a natural starting point for a microeconomic analysis of the
relationship between the firm and the financier, in this case a venture capital firm (Reid 1999).
Indeed there is some appealing research within this area, and the literature is to some extent
valuable for an analysis of the interaction between venture capitalists and firms. In particular, the
literature directs our attention to the impact of information incompleteness. An important
deficiency with respect to these theories is that they disregard trust and learning effects5. VCFs
increasingly act as networkers both in networks of portfolio firms and in networks with other
VCFs. This makes opportunistic behaviour more costly because of excessive reputation effects
that spread rapidly between members of the network. Although learning effects has been partly
integrated by way of game theory using repeated games, then the pure economic theories seem
inadequate for analysing the VCF-firm dyad. This proposition has been supported by other
studies sceptical of the dominating principal-agent approach to the analysis (Landström, 1992,
Sapienza and De Clercq, 2000).
Although still rarely applied to the relationship between VCF and portfolio firm, other types
of theories have now begun to be integrated in the theoretical thinking of the VCF-firm dyad.
Overall these other theories may perhaps be said to be “less economic”. Thus, Cable and
Shane (1997) claim that pure economic theories are incomplete, as they do not explain social
ties between the parties. They discuss organizational theory to expand the theoretical under-
standing. Other studies pointing to alternative theoretical avenues include Barney et al., 1996,
Shepherd and Zacharakis, 2001, de Clercq and Sapienza, 2001, Manigart et al., 2002, DeClercq
and Fried (2005).
Theoretical developments also have pointed to that the interaction must lead to ways of pool-
ing the information in a manner suited to the receiver’s organizational structure and ability to
process informational signals (Arrow, 1974). The more specialized the organizational design,
the more effective the receiving and processing of information. This aspect is dealt with in
depth and applied to venture capital by Bottazzi et al (2004).
The above indicates that an efficient knowledge exchange require a mutual adaptation of the
other party’s ways and habits of interacting. If routines for knowledge exchange are in place
communication tends to be smoother. In this way the venture capital firm takes the absorptive
capacity of the other party into account. The idea of absorptive capacity was, at least in the
Cohen and Levinthal work (1989), meant as an argument for why firms prefer to do R&D for
other reasons besides making new products or processes. It may be, according to this theory, that
firms increase their ability to assimilate external information. A firm that engages in intramural
R&D will be in a much better position to assess what is relevant external information and what is
not relevant. Moreover, it becomes easier to interact with other researchers due to the proximity
in culture, logic, and language. For the venture capital firm, the concept of absorptive capacity is
highly relevant because the capacity is related not only to the size and age of the investee firm
but also to the degree of specialization of the venture capital firm and whether the competencies
of the two parties match. Wijbenga et al (2003) link a possible fit between the value added by
VCFs and the ventures strategy to the performance of the port folio firms. In doing so they ex-
5
An additional omission, which is rarely recognised, is that these theories tend to see the potential opportunistic
behaviour one-sided. It is only considered that the entrepreneur may act opportunistically and monitoring efforts
are imposed on the entrepreneur only.
5

7.
plicitly take into account the abilities and personality of the entrepreneur as well as the organisa-
tional learning capabilities of the firm. In a similar vein it has been argued that VCFs during the
screening process identify how they can add value after investment and consequently allocate the
type and amount of resources to these areas (Kaplan and Strömberg, 2001) as well as design the
financing arrangements accordingly (Gompers, 1995). DeClercq and Fried (2005) find that
value adding activities are more efficient when venture capital firms are clear about their
commitment in the interaction with the portfolio firms. This commitment not only add re-
sources and time, it also facilitates that portfolio firms are more open to the advise of the ven-
ture capital firm.
The argument that absorptive capacity is related to the degree of specialization may at first seem
counterintuitive. The reverse hypothesis, that broad scope will increase one’s ability to interact
with many types of people, may be plausible. However, as venture capital firms experience an
increasing degree of specialization at a number of markets, they increase not only their knowl-
edge of the market and the technologies involved but also their ability to interact with certain
types of firms. The second point is that it is important that the absorptive capacities of the two
parties match, or at least have some overlap. Such a proper matching is even more important than
a high level of absorptive capacity on both sides. For example, a biotech entrepreneur may be
well equipped for understanding what is discussed in the negotiations with a technology-focused
venture capital firm. However, if the same entrepreneur approaches a venture capital firm that
specializes in Internet-based firms, the two parties may have quite different understandings of
time horizons and other aspects of the relationship. It may therefore be argued that absorptive
capacity is a relevant aspect of understanding the interaction between venture capital firm and
entrepreneur. However, this aspect ought to be seen as a relative concept and not something that
reflects an absolute level of, for example, specialized knowledge.
These theoretical arguments may be seen as a justification of not only focusing on one of our
three research questions in isolation: the type and level of involvement should perhaps e.g. be
seen in relation to what type of firm VCFs are interacting with. In sum, a positive VCF-
entrepreneur dyad may require the structural and contractural arrangements but also a cognitive
platform as well as a relational dimension establishing common norms, trust and expectations.
As explained in social network theory knowledge relatedness and social capital facilitate transfer
and creation of knowledge (Napiet and Goshal, 1998, Putnam, 1995, Burt, 1992). Similarly, co-
herence and efficiency of the venture capital firm-entrepreneur dyad is enhanced if the above-
mentioned dimensions are in place. Pushing the argument one step further, this accentuates the
importance of human capital in the venture capital involvement in portfolio firms.
4: THE DATA6
Data for our analysis has been collected by the following procedure. First we identified all
venture capital investors in Denmark using different sources such as the European Venture
Capital Association (EVCA), business press, The Danish Investment Fund. In doing so we
limited ourselves to only focus upon “true” venture-backing (Bygrave & Timmons, 1992),
thus excluding firms financed by buy-out funds and other funds not having their main activi-
ties in venture capital, i.e. hands-on investments – mainly equity - in young, un-listed firms
with high risk and high growth potential. The venture capital firms were asked to provide in-
formation on still existing venture-backed firms from earlier investments. In case of merger or
acquisition the continuing firm is included in the sample. We therefore concentrate on suc-
6
Financial support and sparring on data collection is gratefully acknowledged from The Ministry of Industry (in
particular Claus E. Christensen) and The Danish Growth Fund.
6

8.
cessful venture-backed investments while venture-backed firms that for different reasons have
been closed down are excluded. With this approach, and after cleaning the data, we identified
approximately 300 existing venture-backed firms in Denmark. We consider the sample to be a
very good indicator for the total number of venture-backed firms in Denmark in year 2000.7
Thus, we believe to have close to all the venture-backed firms in Denmark in our sample,
which is rather unusual.
Financial data for 10 years was then added to the database using commercial business register.
A realised sample of 121 managers in firms were then interviewed by telephone to get infor-
mation about the venture capital investment, and the role of the VCF in the development of
the venture. In total 175 venture-backed firms were contacted rendering a response rate of
71%. The questions concerned what the firms saw as the contribution of the VCF. We also
asked about how much VCFs were involved and the impact of this involvement. Finally we
asked the firm a few questions about characteristics with respect to development in revenues,
employment and innovation. We therefore have data that are very suitable for investigating
the three research questions in this paper8.
Consistent with the definition of “true” venture above the sample is dominated by relatively
small firms. Information on the total portfolio firms on size is shown in the following tabula-
tion.
TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE
5: THE VCF INVOLVEMENT IN DANISH FIRMS
5.1. WHAT DO VCFS DO?
Definitions of venture capital emphasize that the venture capitalist besides financial strength
also contributes with additional managerial competencies and mentoring of the investee firm.
But what is more precisely the content of involvement, or in other words, what is it venture
capital firms provide in addition to capital9? As mentioned above, this issue has achieved
much attention from researchers lately. Indeed, even in textbooks (e.g. Entrepreneurial Fi-
nance, Smith & Smith, p.510, 1999), this is substantiated, where it lists the time venture capi-
talists spent in portfolio firms by different tasks. That book listed “directing and monitoring”
as the task that VCFs used most time on with close to 25% of all of what they did in the port-
folio firm. Secondly and thirdly was ranked “recruiting management” and “consulting”.
7
Manigart, Baeyens et al. (2002) create a sample of 565 venture-backed firms in Belgium for the period 1987-
1997. They estimate to cover 57% of venture investments in Belgium in their sample. As we focus upon a rela-
tive narrow definition of venture capital (e.g. excluding MBO funds) and for a smaller country in a shorter pe-
riod, it seems fair to conclude that the number of venture capital-backed firms we found in Denmark is realistic.
A similar sampling approach in a Norwegian survey rendered 240 firms (Aslesen and Langeland, 2003).
8
The survey included other issues like exit from the investment. These other issues are not reported here.
9
The organisation of how venture capitalists are tutoring investee firms may differ from case to case. In most
cases the venture capital firm take a seat in the board of the firm. In fact, this is so in 79% of the firms in our
sample of venture-backed firms, roughly alike the findings by Bottazzi et al (2005) who finds that 68% of Euro-
pean venture capital firms have a seat at the board of their portfolio firms. Rosenstein et al. (1993) and MacMil-
lan et al. (1989) discuss the role of venture capitalists in the workings of the board. In the data set of Kaplan and
Strömberg (2001) venture capitalists have the majority in the board in 25% of their 213 cases.
7

9.
Our own survey was inspired by the theoretical and empirical literature, but also by similar
surveys in Sweden and the UK (Isaksson, 1999 and BVCA, 1999). In fact, to ensure compa-
rability we adopted some of the questions posed in these countries. Thus, on some points sur-
veys in Sweden and the UK are comparable with our own, and to some extent also a survey in
Norway (Aslesen and Langeland, 2003).
In table 2 the main results on the content of venture capital involvement from these surveys
are included together with results from our own survey. Minor differences in the formulation
of the questions and in the scale used for assessment make direct comparison a bit difficult,
but still possible.10
TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE
The results indicate that Danish firms primarily see the contribution of venture capital as a
link to other financing sources. Second, “Strategy”, and the somewhat related categories
“Sounding board for new ideas”, “Financial advice” and “Contacts and networks” are impor-
tant. It is evident from the results that “Technical know-how” is not seen as a major contribu-
tion from the venture capitalist.
As should be expected the percentages from the Swedish survey are below the Danish (as a 6-
point scale was used). There is nevertheless agreement on the importance of “Strategy”,
“Sounding board for new ideas”, “Financial advice”, “Contacts and networks” as opposed to
the small importance of another group “Increase the ability to develop new products”, “In-
crease knowledge on the market” and “Recruitment”. The British survey is less comparable
but emphasises more the innovative contribution from venture capitalists – “Challenging
status quo” and “Sounding board for new ideas” came out as top-priority contributions. The
results largely resemble those of other studies as reviewed in section 211.
Interestingly, many Danish firms see even more contributions from the venture capital firm
than those listed in the table. Respondents were asked to specify such additional contributions.
Reviewing those statements rendered two dominating categories: the ability of the venture
capital firm to improve the functioning of the board, and a positive image effect from the fi-
nancing. The latter is interesting and came rather surprising as the literature only sparsely
point to these effects12.
Selected statements are included below:
10
One complication is that the British survey lists the percentage of firms who see each sub-issue as a contribu-
tion from venture capital, whereas the firms are asked to assess each sub-issue on a scale 1-5 in Denmark and 1-6
in Sweden. Nevertheless, the ranking of the issues provides useful information on what are the primary non-
economic contribution from venture capital.
11
Although not strictly comparable the results from a Norwegian survey also reveal that strategy, networks,
advice and access to additional finance are important contributions, whereas assistance with product develop-
ment, marketing, and organisational development is ranked low.
12
Related, Shane and Cable (2002) find that reputation may mediate the effects of social ties and alleviate
asymmetries in information. Their investigation is, however, more on the initial investment decisions by VCFs
rather than the post-investment relationship. Fredriksen (1997, p.56) also point to the fact that it is an aspect of
value added that venture financing is signalling quality of the company hence alleviating financial constraints on
the capital market. The reputation effect may be present on the financier side as well as entrepreneurs in some
cases may deliberately choose to approach a venture fund with good reputation, even if this involves paying a
premium (Hsu, 2004).
8

10.
“Our work on the board of the firm has been improved substantially through this
collaboration”
“They contributed a lot to the work of the board in a very positive manner”
“Our image has improved after collaborating with XX”
“To be supported by YY gives a positive image among other firms and financ-
ing sources”
With regard to contribution to innovation it may be concluded that the role of venture capital
firms does not seem to be direct. The contribution to new product development, innovation
management and technical know-how is ranked low. Rather there are indications that venture
capital firms have a role as networker and in that sense may indirectly contribute to innova-
tion. Thus, relations to other financing sources and contacts and networks are at the top of the
list of contributions.
5.2. HOW MUCH DO VCFS DO WHAT THEY DO?
A different issue is the level of involvement. Investments may be made quite differently with
respect to the involvement of an investor. An investor may be only passively providing capi-
tal, or he may be heavily influencing the development of the firm. According to the firms in
our survey an assessment of this aspect varies, as shown in table 3. A majority (69%) of the
firms consider the involvement of the venture fund to be “to some degree” or more. It is to be
expected cf. the definition of venture capital, that at least some involvement would be re-
flected in the responses. It is, however, uncertain what level one should expect.
TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE
A Swedish survey (Isaksson, 1999) asked a similar question but used a 6-point scale. Al-
though this complicate direct comparisons the results indicate that Swedish venture capital
firms are a bit more involved in the portfolio firm. Interesting, there are apparently a number
of firms both in Denmark and Sweden, who do not consider the venture capital firm to be
actively involved at all in spite of the definition and usual perception of venture capital firms
as hands-on investors13.
TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE
In the literature there is an implicit assumption that the involvement of the VCF is positive,
and that “the more the better” – the firms only benefit from VCF involvement. But according
to the firms in our survey, there is apparently no uniform opinion of whether the involvement
13
These results are consistent with Fredriksen (1997), who finds that 7% of the venture capitalists in his empiri-
cal investigation are not active at all.
9

11.
of the venture capital firm is seen as something positive or the opposite. Statements from
firms during the interviews provide documentation of a variety of opinions on this point.
Statements from firms on the involvement of venture capital firms:
“The collaboration has been very fine. They (the venture capital firm) are very
active in the daily running of the firm”
“The collaboration has been good and positive. They (the venture capital firm)
have not interfered in the daily running of the firm”
“The venture capital firm restricted our development by their heavy involve-
ment”
“XX has taken up too much of our time compared to the amount invested in our
company”
“It has been a positive experience. They performed well as general partners in
several areas”
“It has been perfect until now. They do not interfere in the daily running of the
firm. They just provide capital.”
“The collaboration with the venture firm has been a positive experience so far.
They virtually saved our life.”
“The collaboration with the venture firm has been outstanding and very decisive
for the further development of the firm.”
“The collaboration with the venture firm has not worked at all. ZZ has generally
been a hindrance to our development.”
The statements render clear indications that just assuming positive outcomes of the involve-
ment is too simplistic (Barney et al. 1996). Most surveys have failed to ask about negative
outcomes and have thus contributed to this one-sided view. The statements also indicate that
firms have different assessments of what is an appropriate level of involvement (Barney et al.
1996).
On the other hand, there is no doubt that even if there are firms who consider VCF-
involvement to be counter-productive the survey also render clear evidence that VCFs have
important – in some cases vital – positive influence on the development of the firm. Thus,
firms were asked a hypothetical question “Without the involvement of the venture capital
firm, would the firm then either be closed down, developed slower, had the same develop-
ment, developed faster” (see table 5). On this point the British survey is directly comparable,
and is included in the table.
TABLE 5 ABOUT HERE
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12.
About two thirds of the Danish venture-backed firms state that they would either not have
existed or would have developed in a slower pace without venture capital financing. One out
of five firms believe they would have had an unchanged development, while only 4% believe
they could have managed better without venture capital. The perception concerning the im-
pact of venture capital in the UK seems to be more positive compared to the Danish case.
Also Norwegian venture capitalists seem to have kept more firms alive than Danish VCFs.
One of the main motivations for VCF involvement is that the nursing of the portfolio firm
may add value and improve economic performance. But which firms are nursed more? This
question is researched in the subsequent section on what are characteristics of firms who ex-
perience high involvement from their VC financier.
6: WHY DO VCFS DO WHAT THEY DO?
We have already in the theoretical discussion pointed to some possible factors explaining
VCF-involvement in their portfolio firms. In this section we consider what characteristics may
explain this involvement. The following variables may contribute to explaining the level of
involvement does this.
The variables that we ideally would like to look further into are
- the ownership share. We would expect this variable to be positively related to the de-
gree of involvement, VCFs would have an incentive to closely monitor and guide
firms they are heavily involved in financially (Landström, 1992).
- The age of the firm. We would expect this variable to be negatively related to the de-
gree of involvement, VCFs would probably not need to assist management of firms
who have passed the difficult start-up stage to the same extent. Sapienza et al. (1994),
Cumming et al. (2005), and Timmons (1982) found that VCFs were more involved in
firms in early stage. However, Elango et al. (1995) found no such relationship.
- The size of the firm. We would expect this variable to be negatively related to the de-
gree of involvement, again, VCFs would probably not need to assist management of
firms who have passed the difficult start-up stages, and both age and size of firms are
indicators on this.
- Innovation. We would expect this variable to be positively related to the degree of in-
volvement, as innovation often involves additional uncertainties and VCFs would be
more engaged in establishing networks and sales channels for new products/highly in-
novative firms. This assertion may be traced back to Schumpeter (1939)14. Findings by
Sapienza, 1992, Sapienza et al. (1994) and Sapienza et al. (1996) also lend support to
this hypothesis.
- Development of performance of the firm. One could argue for different expectations to
how this variable is related to the degree of involvement. On the one hand, it is plausi-
ble that VCFs would act as “firefighters” (Frederiksson, 1997) and become more in-
volved if things go wrong. On the other hand we could also expect that, as venture
capital is much about picking a few “stars”, the VCF would get more involved in de-
veloping further firms who show to be potential such stars.
14
In a passage in his ”Business Cycles” (1939) Schumpeter emphasizes the importance of a close contact be-
tween borrower and lender in the screening and monitoring function of the banker. Thus, the financier
“….should know, and be able to judge, what his credit is used for and....the banker must not only know what the
transaction is which he is asked to finance and how it is likely to turn out, but he must also know the customer,
his business, and even his private habits, and get, by frequently "talking things over with him," a clear picture of
his situation. But if banks finance innovation, all this becomes immeasurably more important."(p.90).
11

13.
- The financial situation (stock) of the firm. If the firm is financially fragile this may be
an indication of relatively more problems with asymmetric information. Such firms
could be thought of as particular necessary to monitor closely.
- Geographical distance between the firm and the VCF (in case of more than one VCF
among the owners the distance to the one with the largest ownership share, as VCFs
often leave the bulk of the work with monitoring etc to the VCF with the largest share,
thus acting as lead investor15). We would expect this variable to be negatively related
to the degree of involvement, VCFs would be more inclined to be involved in firms
with close localisation (Lerner, 1995).
Most of our variables are directly obtained form either the survey data or the register data,
whereas there are some approximation for some variables. Table 6 provides an overview of
how variables are measured.
TABLE 6 ABOUT HERE
Table 7 shows means and median values for our variables. The table display some of the key
features of the firms in the two groups “active VCFs” and “passive VCFs”. It should be noted
that the number of observations in the calculations of each variable differs, and may be below
the maximum 107. This is due to either deletion of outliers from the calculations or lack of
available data for the specific variable.
TABLE 7 ABOUT HERE
The variables generally show consistency with respect to the relative size of means and medi-
ans between the two groups. Our first hypothesis that VCFs are more involved in firms where
they have a large ownership share is not confirmed by the above, admittedly preliminary, cal-
culations. Means and medians display no significant differences between the two groups16.
Likewise, the hypothesis that venture capital firms are more involved in younger firms is re-
jected. In fact, there are significant differences between the groups on two other, inter-related
characteristics, size of firm measured either as number of employees or the size of the reve-
nues in 1999. But whereas our hypothesis posits that we expect a negative correlation between
the variables and level of involvement, we find that VCFs are more involved in larger firms.
This finding is contradicting that of Sapienza et al (1994) as that study indicates that one
should expect small firms to need more guidance, hence requiring more involvement from the
venture capital firm.
The assertion that venture capital-backed firms, who assess the VCF involvement to be high,
are more innovation-intensive seems to be justified in the responses from our sample of firms,
although median values indicate that it is not a strong result. On the other hand, the lack of
clarity of the results is consistent with the findings on the content of the involvement, where
technological assistance was ranked low. Even when VCFs do play a role in innovation it may
15
Gorman and Sahlman (1989) find that VCF use ten times as much time on an investment where the VCF is the
lead investor compared to a late stage investment
16
It could be argued that these are not the relevant indicators. Rather this variable should list the share of firms
with a majority stake within each group.
12

14.
well be more of a mediator and networker than a technology specialist (Florida and Kenney,
1988). Even quite some years ago Timmons and Bygrave (1986) pointed to the qualitative
role played by venture capitalist in the innovation process. Florida and Kenney (1988) con-
tended that venture capital has a key role to play in a new model of innovation. In their per-
ception, the new model of innovation is based on integrating components of how Schumpete-
rian theory sees the change in the way innovation takes place17. Thus, Florida and Kenney see
venture capital-backed innovation as a new form of innovation in between the (individual)
entrepreneurial-driven and the (large) corporate and R&D-driven innovation process.
Financial variables render a somewhat mixed picture, though the results do indicate that ven-
ture capital firms need to work more with financially fragile firms. Even if statistics for dif-
ferences of means are not all significant, then the size of means and the median values for the
growth variables are clear indications that venture capital see the short term development of
the firm as important for their decision to invest time in assisting the firm18.
Following earlier studies, the hypothesis and theoretical considerations in section 2 and 3, and
the frequency analyses above, we establish a model to be tested using our data set. As the in-
dependent variable we use the degree of involvement as experienced by the responding firms
in our survey. This variable is on an ordinal scale as are many of the other variables in the
questionnaire. We therefore use categorical data analyses techniques. We use a logistic re-
gression model to test for independence, which render results similar to those of the descrip-
tive statistics.
7: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
It has been claimed, even in early studies (Wells, 1974), that there is huge variation among
VCFs in what they do. This variation may also be considerable over time (Fried et al, 1993).
The behaviour of VCFs may, e.g. be different in a recession compared to an up-swing, not
only with regard to the investment decision, but also the post-investment activities. In addi-
tion, VCFs behaviour is likely to differ in different countries (Knight, 1994). This will, of
course, make general conclusions more difficult. Nevertheless, we believe that the results
from this study on what VCFs do, that VCFs primarily act as a link to other financing sources
and generally as a networker, rather than playing a direct role in innovation, adequately re-
flects the behaviour of Danish VCFs.
Even earlier studies have emphasized that the venture capital firm may have an important
intermediary role. Venture capitalists are important parts in networks and are furthermore in
between, and central to, several different types of networks. In Florida and Kenney (1988,
p.127) these networks are grouped in four, although they do overlap. The first of these is the
financial network, which includes the venture capital fund and its back funding to syndication
partners like other venture capital funds and business angels as well as complementary financ-
ing sources19. The second network is used in the location of investment opportunities and their
17
Changes in the mode of innovation has, however, long been discussed by many authors; see, for example, the
well-known discussion of a Schumpeter Mark I and II mode of innovation. In short, Mark I is the entrepreneurial
mode that has the creative individual as the driving force, whereas innovation in Mark II is driven by R&D de-
partments of large firms. More recently innovation theory has discussed extensively the existence and changes in
technological regimes.
18
The causality of this could be both ways. The results could also reflect that the involvement has resulted in
high growth rates.
19
Venture capitalists are important intermediaries in relation to their portfolio firms as well. It is a deliberate
strategy in some venture capital firms to place a limited number of managers on the boards of several portfolio
13

15.
screening. This group spans from other venture capitalist and business angels to accountants
and universities. A third network surrounding venture capital firms consists of accounting
firms, lawyers, consultants, and other professional service firms. Finally, a personal network
is used to ensure the human resources in the innovation process, on both the management and
the technical side. An important prerequisite for this venture-backed innovation process to
succeed is a well-developed technological infrastructure, or in Florida and Kenney’s own
words, “social structures of innovation” (1988, p.120). Perhaps even more important, as re-
flected in this chapter’s focus, is the microeconomic, personal interactions between the par-
ties.
Although Florida and Kenney do not address it in their work (1988), the social structures of
innovation would often constitute completely different things in different national and even
regional contexts. Stimulation of such social structures ought to be subject to policy develop-
ment, but until recently it has largely been overlooked by policy makers in the European
countries.
On a firm level it may be difficult for the firm to adequately assess how much the VCF is ac-
tually involved. The subjective judgements from the interviews may to some extend also re-
flect different expectations to how much a VCF should be involved. Half of the venture-
backed firms claimed that the involvement of the VCF is “a lot” or “Very much”. This largely
corresponds to similar findings in Sweden, although they may be a little more involved. It is
important to note that there is not a uniform opinion on whether this involvement should only
be looked upon positively. In fact, our survey displayed opinions of negative impact as well,
although the general picture is clearly one of positive impact of the involvement.
We developed different hypotheses on what are characteristics of firms where VCFs are heav-
ily involved. VCFs tend to be more involved in firms who are relatively large, innovative,
financially fragile, and with large growth rates. It does not seem as if the ownership share or
age of firm are strong determinants of the decision to be much involved in the firm.
Throughout the paper, and in much of the literature, there is an emphasis on the importance of
competencies with the VCF. Competencies are essential for fulfilling the role as mentor and
to monitor and assist potential firms’ management. If the venture capital firms decide to build
up such competency internally, it is extremely important to assess to what extent are resources
used for competence building sunk. Some competencies may be very industry specific while
others are more generic. A way to build up competency would be to specialise in certain seg-
ments of the market. This involves a dilemma: specialisation will inevitably mean higher risk
exposure, while also making it more difficult to diversify in order to minimise risk. One way
to enhance the ability of the VCF to provide efficient value-adding involvement is for the
VCF to focus upon the very processes of knowledge generation and –exchange. In other
words, VCFs should be aware of when productive interplay with portfolio firms takes place in
order to perhaps enhance similar interplay in future or other cases. This type of double-loop-
learning (Kolb, 1984) is an important but largely overlooked part of internal knowledge in
VCFs complementary to the statistics and formalised decision aid system already in place in
most VCFs.
In the present situation, there is a tendency, at least in Denmark that VCFs are under financial
pressure and focus upon second-round investments in selected existing portfolio firms rather
firms, thus stimulating networking across these firms.
14

16.
than new investments. This situation also calls for new types of competences, as it becomes
important to be good at seeing opportunities in merging some of the portfolio firms with other
firms. Both the first and third type of the Florida & Kenney-network becomes more impor-
tant.
On the entrepreneur side there may also be implications. The variance displayed here in what
and how much VCFs do indicate that entrepreneurs should be aware of these differences
when choosing which VCF to approach. The specific needs of the entrepreneur should be in
alignment with what the VCF is able to provide. This requires that the entrepreneur is clear
about what are these needs, something that not all entrepreneurs know in advance of seeking
capital. Likewise, back-funding sources of venture capital funds like pension funds may rec-
ognize that the value added activities of VCFs may influence the long-run performance. Cum-
ming et al (2005) find that in the Australian market pension fund managers are already paying
attention to the extent and nature of value added contributions from VCFs when choosing to
allocate new capital to venture capital. Consistent with the results in this paper they find that
pension funds allocate relatively more capital to VCFs who provide more financial and strate-
gic/management advice as opposed to marketing and administrative advice.
There are obviously limitations to the argument in this paper. We have used quantitative
methods for investigating an issue that is admittedly difficult to generalize. The difficulties in
this rest with the fact that what venture capital firms do differ according to what kind of firm
they invested in. Thus, a seed- or start-up investment may require completely different assis-
tance than that of a MBO-investment. Many VCFs are diversified in their portfolio with re-
spect to stages of development of their portfolio firms. Therefore, they do many different
things at the same time. Moreover, there may be differences in their involvement that are de-
pendent upon what type of assistance they provide (this proposition is, however, partly re-
jected by a study by Barney et al., 1996). In our analyses in this paper we were able to partly
take this into account.
But further studies are required to get a better understanding of this phenomenon. The com-
plexities in the interaction indicate that additional studies should be pair-wise and object-
oriented, i.e. focus upon a specific project. Moreover, there is a remarkable absence of studies
that investigate what Landström (1992) denotes environmental characteristics influencing the
interaction. Future studies may include such factors when assessing the VCF-firm involve-
ment.
REFERENCES
Amit, R. Brander, J. and Zott, C. (1998), Why do venture capital firms exist? Theory and Ca-
nadian evidence, Journal of Business Venturing, 13, 441-466.
Arrow, K.J. (1974): "The Limits of Organization", New York.
Aslesen, H. and Langeland, O. (2003): “Knowledge economy and spatial clustering: The role of
knowledge-intensive business services and venture capital firms in the innovation system”, paper
for DRUID conference on Creating, sharing and transferring knowledge. Copenhagen, june 12-
14.
Barney, J. B., Busenitz, L.W., Fiet, J.O., Moesel, D.D. (1996), New venture teams’ assessment
of learning assistance from venture capital firms, Journal of Business Venturing, 11, 257-272.
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21.
Table 1. Firm size
Number of employees N Percent
0-4 74 29.1
5-19 70 27.6
20-49 40 15.8
50-199 44 17.3
>200 9 3.5
0 17 6.7
Total 254 100
Source: Survey. N is all firms in the sample for which it was possible to add financial data.
Table 2: Contributions of venture capital, high scores/shares
Contribution Denmarka Sweden UK
Relations to other financing sources 50
Strategy 39 19 29b
Sounding board for new ideas 38 21 60
Financial advice 35 37 36
Contacts and networks 32 23
Increase the R&D activities of the firm 17
Increase the general level of competence within the firm 17
Increase the ability to develop new products 12 3
Increase knowledge on the market 10 6 23c
Recruitment 9 8 13
Increases abilities of the firm to manage innovation projects 6
Increase the technical know-how of the firm 4
Other contributions (share who list one or more) 21 0
Challenging status quo 47
Note: a In the Danish survey high scores are calculated as: Share of respondents answering Very large effect +
large effect compared to all responding. In the Swedish survey high scores are the two top levels of a 6-grade
scale. In the British survey the numbers just denote the share of firms in non-MBO’s who ticked the contribu-
tion.
b
“Corporate strategy/direction + marketing strategy”.
c
“Contacts or market information”.
Source: Own survey, Isaksson (1999) and BVCA (1999).
Table 3: The degree of involvement of the venture capital firm, Denmark. %
Not at all To a small extent To some degree A lot Very much Do not know No. of obs
10 16 21 29 19 4 112
Question: “How involved do you think the venture capital firm is in your company?”
Source: Own survey.
Table 4: The degree of Involvement of the venture capital firm - Sweden, %.
Not at all Very much
3 11 13 16 34 23
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22.
Table 5: Impact of involvement by the venture capital firm, %
Closed down Developed No change Developed Do not know No. of obs
slower faster
The UK 55 43 1 0 1 87
Denmark 24 40 21 4 11 112
Norway 42 41 76
Source: Own survey, Aslesen and Langeland (2003) and BVCA (1999).
Table 6: Measurement of variables
Variable indicator
Ownership share (%) Ownership share held by formal VCFs
Employees 1999 (No.) Number of empl. In full time equivalents
Age of firm Number of years since establishment
Innovation Number of new products, processes or services in 1999
Revenues Revenues in 1999 in mill. DKK
Geographical distance Whether the firm is located away from the VCF*
Debt-Equity ratio Debt / equity in 1998
Profitability Result before taxes / equity in 1998
Solidity Equity/total liabilities in 1998
Growth in employment Growth from 1998 – 1999
Growth in revenues Growth from 1998 - 1999
Growth in liquidity Growth from 1997 - 1998
Notes: * This is a rough estimation based upon whether the postal code indicate that the firm is located in the
Copenhagen area. As we know that 98% of the VC funds are managed from the Copenhagen funds (The Danish
Growth Fund, 2002) it is assumed that most of the funds are in Copenhagen. For the firms where we know the
name of the VCF, the data have been adjusted to the regionally located VCFs.
Table 7: Descriptive statistics for Two groups of Firms.
Variable N (Ac- Active VCFs Passive VCFs
tive/Passive)
Mean Median Mean Median
Ownership share 44/42 46 46 46 41
(%)
Employees 1999 52/53 79* 25 46* 20
(No.)
Age of firm 48/49 15 7 14 8
Innovation 35/39 12* 2 7* 3
Revenues 34/37 80* 27 46* 20
Geographical dis- 46/49 1.72 1.60
tance
Debt-Equity ratio 34/26 0.84* 0.62 0.74* 0.26
Profitability 47/47 -10* -1 23* 8
Solidity 46/47 29 33 16 26
Growth in em- 46/50 76 28 55 17
ploymnet
Growth in revenues 34/37 53 30 33 10
Growth in liquidity 23/24 66* 51 19* 1
Notes: * Means significantly (95%-level) different from each other.
** Less reliable data because of low number of observations or outliers
21